A 19-year-old woman has denounced that she was exchanged when she was a baby in a public hospital in Logroño and ended up in a family that was not hers in 2002. The newspaper
LaRioja.com
, which has made the case known, details that the injured claims three million euros to the Ministry of Health for the damage caused. This department acknowledges the error and maintains that it was a human error. No reaction has emerged from the other affected party, who was informed of the alleged negligence. The Government of La Rioja has no evidence that this other victim has made a complaint.
The two women involved were born on the same day in the now defunct San Millán hospital in Logroño. Both did it with only five hours of difference and with little weight, hence they were destined to the incubator area to allow their full development. It was then that the alleged failure occurred that caused the little ones to end up in the arms of a family that was not their own.
The complainant, whose real name has not emerged, went from a structured environment to a family with complications and was raised by what she believed to be her grandmother, always according to the aforementioned medium.
The first suspicion came when in 2017 the alleged mother sued the alleged father of the then teenager because the man did not take care of her.
The disputes ended in a DNA test that revealed that this man was not the girl's father, and subsequent analysis revealed that her alleged mother was not genetically related to the child either.
"Tell me who I am"
The lawyer who is managing the case, José Sáez-Morga, explains that the injured party, when she turned 16, addressed the lawyers with a request: "Tell me who I am."
Then they went to the La Rioja Health Inspection and began an investigation with a result: at that time there were 17 girls who could coincide with the complainant.
The succession of investigations such as blood tests indicated that there is only one baby with whom the affected one could have been exchanged.
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The procedure is currently at the expense of DNA tests requested last January to discover if the parents of that baby were actually the biologicals of Sáez-Morga's client. He affirms that the evidence already known invites them to think that they are correct. According to the lawyer, the two affected have not contacted until now.
The lawyer details that the process is currently in two legal proceedings. One, in charge of the Prosecutor's Office, who appeared as the defense of the minors in a filiation process and to correct the failure of the Civil Registry, since the identities of two people are not corresponding. Likewise, this lawyer works on behalf of the complainant and has claimed three million euros as compensation for the damages generated. The Riojan government, says Sáez-Morga, hides itself in the fact that there is "no causality or injurious acts" in what happened and raises a compensation of 215,000 euros. The lawyer details that this "negligence" entails a causality included in article 220.5 of the Penal Code.
The Community Health Minister, Sara Alba, has argued that the case occurred almost 20 years ago and that they will respect the judicial procedures: "It is a case that occurred two decades ago and was prosecuted during the last legislature." . Likewise, Alba stressed that "it was a human error" and they have not been able to "conclude who it was."
